LAST WEEK LOOKED LIKE A MOP-UP CAMPAIGN FOR THE ANTI-EL TORO-
airport forces. In the wake of Measure F’s resounding election triumph, they pursued the decimated pro-airport side with a vengeance.
Most airport backers went into hiding. Yours truly suggested peace talks. And Newport Beach Mayor Tom Edwards simply ran up the white flag of surrender. Edwards figures if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. So he’s suggesting his city consider dropping its support of an El Toro airport, in return for a pledge from South County that it will fight any expansion of John Wayne.
To which I respond that everything comes at a price, and here’s a recent one: LAX to Phoenix, $78; John Wayne to Phoenix, $151. Wait to see what the price differential will be if we wind up with an Agran-Edwards axis.
The anti-airport crowd’s new offensive is the assertion that Measure F doesn’t merely require that an airport get a two-thirds approval of voters. It now also means that Jan Mittermeier or the county supervisors need two-thirds voter approval even if they just want to fly to Washington to talk about the airport. That is, unless they’re flying there to talk against the airport, which would be okay.
This may sound incredible, but the way the anti-airport crowd figures it, to the victor goes the spoils.
Still, if the anti-airport forces prevail in the end, they or the county or somebody will actually have to figure out what to do with the base. And that could prove more problematic than tearing apart an airport plan. A portent came in another news item last week, that the Navy was indefinitely delaying approval of homes and a golf course at the former Tustin Marine Base.
Councilman Tom Saltarelli told the Register that federal officials “believe this property in the middle of Orange County is worth a lot of money” and that the city’s intended uses for it don’t qualify as a “public benefit” warranting a free transfer of the land.
To which I note, if federal officials are balking at Tustin’s project, wait until they take a gander at the Millennium Plan.
